“Yeah, well, personal growth can kiss my ass.”
“There’s a whole subgenre of guys who try to heal with green juice and yoga. You don’t strike me as one of them.”
“I caught my girlfriend screwing the CEO’s nephew. I saw his dick. I want bread and vengeance.”
“Atta boy.” He laughs. “I’ve got the perfect place. Come on.” Rishi jerks his chin toward the corner.
We end up at a twenty-four-hour pizza window sandwichedbetween a tattoo parlor and a place that sells knockoff sneakers out of the back.
Rishi orders two slices. “Grease and carbs. Step one in heartbreak triage.”
I lean against the wall while we wait, the scent of hot dough and body odor coats the air.
Taking our pizza to the curb like the classy professionals we are, we sit on the edge of a planter filled with what may or may not be a dying shrub.
“You know what the worst part is?” I ask around a bite.
“That she picked Jackson?”
“That she pickedhim,and I still want her.”
Rishi doesn’t flinch. He nods and wipes sauce off his thumb.
“Yeah, well. Hearts are stupid. Brains know better, but hearts? They’re like toddlers with access to fireworks.”
I laugh, despite myself.
Rishi eyes me as we toss our empty pizza plates into a can. “You don’t wanna go home.”
He says it like a fact, not a question.
I exhale through my nose. “It’s too quiet. It’ll feel like the furniture’s judging me.”
“Bro Code, Section Nine: No man gets left to sulk in a silent apartment post-breakup. Let’s go.”
“Go where?”
He’s already walking. “Everywhere.”
What follows is less a plan and more a fever dream of tomfoolery:
8:43 PM –we hit the Korean grocery on 38th and buy two random bottles of imported soju, a jar of pickled quail eggs, and a single peach.
“For luck,” Rishi says, tossing it to me.
9:11 PM –we’re at Bryant Park, daring each other to jump the fountain. We don’t—but wealmostdo. Two tourists ask if we’re TikTokers. Rishi says yes.
9:58 PM –we find a random stoop, sit on it like old men, and pass the soju back and forth.
“I thought she was it,” I say, continuing my woe is me rant.
“You were all in.”
“I was ready to build a life with her.”
“You were only halfway through the blueprints.”
“I made a digital presentation.”
